How long do you think is appropriate to deal with an online return at a small company?

[elegantlion]

I'm fairly sure I'm spoiled by Amazon who has so much stuff automated. I'm being vague, because I know how *I* feel and I just want to make sure I'm not out of line. And if this doesn't get resolved I will absolutely share the company name. This is NOT homeschooling related and the company has employees, just not a whole lot of them. 

[eternalsummer]

I'd expect to ship it back to them; that would take about a week in the US, maybe somewhat less.  Then I'd give them a week to receive the return, process it, and issue a refund.  Depending on the payment method the refund might take several business days.  So 3 weeks at the outside?

[Garga]

Three weeks sounds good to me, too.

[JustEm]

If I had to return an item before getting my refund then 3 weeks. If nothing needed to be returned then a week.

[Arcadia]

For a return for credit back into my account, 48hrs after the return delivery is signed for.

 

For a return that I would get a replacement for, 3 weeks to a month because USPS can be unpredictable at times even with priority mail.

[eternalsummer]

What are the policies of the company?  I'd expect them to more or less comply with their stated policies.

[zoobie]

After the item is in their hands? 2-3 business days.

[plansrme]

I recently spent two or three weeks going around and around with the owner of a small shop about a refund of an item that she never shipped.  Once I finally got pissy and told her to grow up and stop running her business like a sorority, the refund posted to my credit card within hours.  So, it doesn't take long once they actually get around to it.

[elegantlion]

I'm waiting on a return authorization email to return a defective item. They said they'd send a replacement once the returns shows up or is on its way. I talked to someone Friday night and thought I'd have the email by now. I emailed them Sunday and again tonight asking. I don't want to call again as I'm up to my ears in school work and irritable at having to deal with this at all. I mean how hard can it be a process a UPS label email? Amazon has spoiled me. I did a return with them last week, got the non defective item in 2 days and return label was generated the minute I started the return process.

[eternalsummer]

Amazon has a ton of employees and prioritizes customer service over just about everything else.  There are some things they sacrifice to provide this level of service.

 

What do their return policies say?

 

If they don't have a way to automatically generate a return label (the way amazon does), you might have to wait for their standard processing window, which could be 2-3 days easily.

 

I wouldn't worry about it for at least a week.

 

Alternatively, if you get too fed up, you can always file a case with your payment processor.